MAT 
MAT 
processes in the body as have the appear- 
ance of breasts or dugs, arising in a broad 
basis, and ternnnating in an obtuse top. 
Mastoides is sometimes applied to the mus- 
cle which stoops the head, proceeding from 
the neck-hone and breast-bone, and termi- 
nating in the process of the mammiformis. 
See Mammillary gland. 
MATCH, a kind of rope slightly twisted, 
and prepared to retain fire for the uses of 
artillery, mines, fire-works, &c. It is made 
of hempen tow, spun on the wheel like 
cord, but very slack; and is composed of 
three twists, which are afterwards again 
covered with tow, so that the twists do not 
appear: lastly, it is boiled in the lees of old 
wines. This, wiien once lighted at the end, 
burns on gradually and regularly, without 
ever going out, till the whole be consum- 
ed : the hardest and driest match is gene- 
rally the best, 
MATERIA mcdka. It is a subject of 
curiosity rather than of use, to enquire by 
■what means mankind were induced jn the 
first instance to h-avc recourse to sub- 
stances, when in a state of disease, which 
for the most part, they abhor and fly from 
when in a state of health ; and how they 
came to discern that in these substances 
chiefly, nature has treasimed up the remedies 
of sickness, the restoratives of a vitiated or 
debilitated constitution, from whatever 
source this knowledge has been derived, we 
feel it daily to be a knowledge of a very im- 
portant character, apd we are sensible of its, 
having been vepy generally diffpsed at a 
very early period of ancient history. Ac- 
cident in the fiist instance, and experience 
confirming the result of some fortunate dis- 
covery, were perhaps tb.e chief fopndation 
of therapeutic science in the simplest and 
rudest ages of the world. Yet the whole 
can by no means be traced to this source, 
for the geiiei a! fallacy of experience, is suf- 
ficient to prove that it has had but a very 
small share in establishing the virtues which 
have been ascribed tp most medicines ; 
and it was probably from a tpo freqpent dis- 
appointment in practice, from palpable 
proof of the uncertainty of those remedies 
which are recommended by the ancients, 
that physicians in times comparatively 1^0- 
dern Jiave been induced to seek for means, 
not only pf ascertaining more exactly the 
qualities of established medicines, but of in- 
yestigating the virtues of substances altoge- 
ther new and untried. 
Hence unquestionably the union of clie- 
^listry with the art of healing ; for ampno’ 
the earliest chemists we meet with the first 
attempts at departing from the usual cata- 
logue of medicines in pursuit of a new list, 
Paracelsus led the way by introducing the 
absurd notion of astral influences and of 
signatures ; to which succeeding and more 
rational chemists suggested the utility of a 
chemical analysis. The doctrine of astral 
influences and of signatures, has been alto- 
gether exploded for a long time, though we 
still trace certain vestiges of its former ex- 
istence in many of our latest publications on 
the Materia Meclica. Chemical analysis, 
as it ought to do, has completely triumphed 
over the two former systems, and is daily 
extending its enquiries. To arts, manufac- 
tures, and commerce, these enquiries have 
been pre-eminently nseful,,nor have they 
been without their benefit tq medicine ; 
yet the benefit resulting from this last ap- 
plication has by no means been equal to 
that which has resulted to the twp former. 
The means then resorted to in the present 
day for determining substances to be re- 
medial or medicinal, or in other words the 
previous steps to their introduction into the 
Materia Medica, are their own sensible 
qualities, their botanical affinity, their che- 
mical examination, and general experience. 
Having introduced them into the medical 
catalogue, onr twp next subjects of consi- 
deration, are their classification or arrange- 
ment, and the best mode of employing 
them, whether simply, and on account of 
their own specific virtues, or in connection 
with other substances, by which theirproper 
qualities are so intermixed with the quali- 
ties of the other substances employed, astq 
acquire an increased, a diiniiiished, or alto- 
gether a new action ; and consequently to. 
be productive of a different result. 
The former consideration alone belongs, 
strictly speaking, to the present article ; 
the latter constituting the proper subject 
of pharmacy or compound medicine. For 
the theory and practice, therefore, of com- 
bining and compounding medicinal sub- 
stances, we refer onr readers to the article; 
Pharmacy ; and shall here confine our- 
selves, as strictly as we may be able, to the 
materials actually employed in medicine, 
on account of their own supposed inherent 
virtues, and which for the most part are de- 
nominated simples. 
What ought to be the classification of these 
materials i This is a question which has 
often been agitated, and almost as often 
answered in a different manner : whence 
file arrangement of different -writers is as 
